WELCOME READERS!

I love books and words... not really in the intelligentsia sort of way... but in a more viscereal way. I thought this blog might serve as a source of dialogue for all those who enjoy reading books, who feel almost as if they are friends; for all those who are inwardly pained to see a book abused. I invite your dialogue and postings.

This week I'd like to quote and discuss fromKate Chopin's The Awakening.

Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life --- that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. (Chopin p. 13)

I read this and thought, "Yes!" I learned this lesson very early on as a child. To behave in a way that limits the amount of displeasuer and rejection one will receive from those important to him or her. (Am I already teaching this lesson to my own child? I see so many ways in which I am. How to stop?) But all the while, the inner life is churning away with questions, ideas and dissensions. The mask begans to grow to your face as the internal is slowly silenced, until one day, you actually come to believe that the outward facade is really you.

I think only few people can break away and be free from this public mask... only with abundant grace and mercy. And when they do, what comes seeping forth is so much more genuine and winsome than the most beautiful facade.

Any dialogue?